More than 200 people packed Southside Park in Sacramento on Wednesday to knock doors for a race that rarely draws a crowd: a seat on the American River Flood Control District board. The pull wasn't the levees. It was Hasan Piker, the progressive political commentator and Twitch streamer, who spent the afternoon canvassing on behalf of 28-year-old candidate Emily Smet, hoping to make her the board's first Gen Z trustee.
Piker also urged the crowd to back Mai Vang and Proposition 40 on the November ballot, according to Abridged by PBS KVIE. Smet is running against Tim Crush for the District 2 trustee seat, which represents Midtown and East Sacramento, the outlet reports. Crush was appointed to the board in February 2025 to fill a vacancy and is now campaigning to keep the post outright.
Smet currently works as a watersheds program manager with the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts, per the outlet's reporting. She said she was inspired to run after spending several years as a community organizer with the local Democratic Socialists of America, which also organized Wednesday's canvassing event. Her campaign frames the race in terms rarely applied to flood infrastructure: she told the outlet her “vision is about social justice and public health,” and said she wants the district to provide flood-safety information in languages other than English and expand outreach to unhoused residents living near levees.
Two Very Different Resumes for One Flood Board Seat
Crush is leaning on a different pitch. He has a 39-year career as a civil engineer and a decade of experience as a floodplain manager, and has said the board's work is primarily a public-safety issue, as reported by the same outlet. He wants more focus on maintenance inspections and preventing excessive trash, erosion or encampments along the levees. Crush has also said he believes the DSA is treating the board seat as a stepping stone to other elected offices, while insisting his own political ambitions begin and end with the flood control district.
The endorsement lists underline the contrast. Smet has the backing of the Democratic Party of Sacramento Council, the Sacramento Central Labor Council, United Auto Workers Region 6 and the Latino Democratic Club of Sacramento County, the outlet notes. Crush's endorsements include three sitting flood control board members, Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum, and Sacramento County supervisors Patrick Kennedy and Rich Desmond.
Whoever wins will sit on a board overseeing infrastructure that has quietly protected the region for generations. The American River Flood Control District has provided flood protection to Sacramento-area residents for more than 75 years and maintains 40 miles of levees along the American River and portions of four creeks. The district's crews handle unglamorous but essential work year-round — mowing levee slopes, controlling vegetation and rodents, repairing erosion, and keeping access roads and gates functional so inspectors and emergency equipment can reach trouble spots. Before flood season, crews trim vegetation, repair equipment and stockpile flood-fight materials for rapid deployment, the district says. That maintenance includes mowing levee slopes to reduce fire danger and responding to weak spots that emerge during storms, according to Inside Sacramento. The district funds that work through a special benefit assessment that shows up on property tax bills in designated flood zones.
Why a Streamer With Millions of Followers Showed Up
Piker's involvement wasn't limited to the flood board. He also accused Representative Doris Matsui of living in an ivory tower rather than serving constituents, and urged Sacramento's DSA chapter and its supporters to fight back and show the state Democratic Party that enough is enough, the outlet's reporting states. Matsui is being challenged by Mai Vang for California's 7th Congressional District seat, and Vang joined Piker on a Twitch stream earlier in October as part of an effort to reach younger voters.
That appearance has become its own flashpoint. The Matsui campaign began circulating a petition urging Vang to stand with women survivors of violence and boycott Wednesday's event with Piker, and separately described Vang as too extreme for Congress for actively campaigning alongside him. Vang, for her part, criticized her opponent's spending on attack ads. The primary results give some shape to how close the race already is: Vang won the top spot in June with about 31.2% of the vote to Matsui's 29.1%, according to The Sacramento Bee. Matsui held a financial edge at that point, with nearly $1.8 million raised through June compared with roughly $1.08 million for Vang, the paper reported.
Two UC Davis students who turned out to canvass, Ellie Jackson and Aaron Rodriguez, said they were eager to get involved after learning about local democratic socialist candidates. “It feels nice to replace the helplessness I feel with action,” Rodriguez said, according to the Abridged report.
What's Actually on the Ballot
Piker's canvassing pitch also touched on Proposition 40, which he described to the crowd as a one-time billionaire tax on the November ballot. Per the California Secretary of State's Official Voter Information Guide, the measure would impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on the net worth of billionaires who were California residents as of January 1, 2026, with the tax due in 2027 and an option to spread out payments.
For now, the flood control race remains a down-ballot contest that has unexpectedly become a proxy fight over generational politics, with Smet's social-justice framing squaring off against Crush's engineering credentials in a district built around levee inspections and emergency preparedness rather than campaign spectacle.
